Post 85—The State of the Vancouver Church

The main thrust of this post is a letter I wrote just a few days ago to the Editor of the online magazine Church in Vancouver (CiV) about the state of the church in Vancouver. A gentleman by the name of Jason Byassee recently moved into town to teach at the Vancouver School of Theology on the UBC campus. He has quite a distinguished career behind him already, including publications. We have every reason to welcome him into our community and to expect much from him in terms of creative Christian leadership.

He wrote an article in the January 7/2016 edition of CiV with the title “Vancouver’s Stony Soil: The Church in the Secular City” that I found very interesting, at least partially because he confirmed a long-standing opinion/suspicion I’ve held on the subject. He gave a partial explanation as to why Vancouver is such a secular non-Christian or, at best, a semi-Christian place. I agree with much of what he wrote and recommend his article to you.

I responded to welcome him to our city, to express my appreciation for his input, to enlarge a bit on that topic, while, at the end, I gave a soft critique of an issue peripheral to the main discussion. Here’s that letter, slightly edited for this context:

I welcome Byassee to Vancouver. I expect he will become a great asset to our community.

I agree with Byassee and have long realized that the losses Canada's mainline churches are suffering, especially the United Church, is due to their Christendom foundation. Such a foundation is similar to sand and is bound to fall apart in due time. Of course, they can be revived and get a fresh start. I never accept the term "post-Christian," for we do not know the plans of the Holy Spirit for the future shape of the society or the church. He has surprised us before.

It may be that, as Byassee writes, no one quite knows why the entire church in Canada lost members. I was abroad for many years, but as I observed the Canadian church from afar as it seemed to be falling apart at the seams, I had a strong feeling that while the "mainstream" churches with their Christendom foundation had little to offer the people, most of the "other side" of Protestantism was too fundamentalist and also had little to offer the nation. In recent decades, the Evangelical "side" has woken up to some degree and now participates more fully in national life with a distinctive voice, even having established Christian post-graduate institutions like Trinity Western and the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto.

As to Vancouver being kind of a hick town before Expo 1986, I was not here, but I find it hard to believe. The powers that be would hardly have awarded the city the privilege of hosting Expo if it were such a minor player.

End of Letter

In other words, both sides of the Protestant movement were weak; people showed little interest in either. The one had bought into the secular culture too far and had little left that was distinctive. The other had largely withdrawn from the culture and retreated into the spiritual world.  Indeed, why should people join or pay attention?

There is another aspect to the development of some mainline churches, this time both the United Church and the Anglican Church especially, that also contributes to what could be their slow demise. It is that they allow their clergy deny the very core points of the Gospel. Some deny the resurrection or, for that matter, the divinity of Christ, not to speak of His miracles. I heard one lead a Christmas hymn sing during which he referred to traditional Christmas songs as “songs we used to believe in.” And this is not even to mention that some United Church ministers are atheists, according to Douglas Todd of the Vancouver Sun (July 4 and 11, 2015).  Todd wrote a hard-hitting column on that July 4 and courageous. In our Canada of today we don’t often hear such sharp critique, for it is offensive to the politically correct who seem to dominate our culture.  But that is the state of some of the mainline members of our Vancouver Church. Todd’s article deserves a good summary/review, even though it’s already half a year old.

As to the “other” or Evangelical side of things, the residue of that earlier spiritual retreat and cultural withdrawal is still with us to varying degrees in different denominations. We’re not over the hump yet, as we used to say in my mountainous teen home town, Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, but when you pay attention to the involvement of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada in various central aspects of Canadian culture, then you know Evangelicals are on the way. That’s why I have devoted some posts to their work in the past and plan to do so again occasionally. However, their main efforts are still focused too much on religious issues such as religious freedom. There is little systemic work in the realm of economics and politics. And that is precisely the point where the mainliners concentrate. 

I am grateful the Lord has placed me in the Reformed camp, where both the spiritual and the social receive attention, at least, ideally! That’s what this blog is all about.